Valere Aude eBook

The practical illuminating lesson to be gleamed is
this: That if in infancy and childhood, we pay
more attention to the neglected nasal cavities and
to the hygiene of the mouth and teeth, we will have
less tonsil disease and fewer tonsil operations.

“The partial enucleation of the tonsil,”
the writer asserts, “with even the removal of
its capsule if desired, is complete enough for all
necessary purposes and practically free from danger;
moreover, it produces equal or better results than
complete enucleation with its many accidents and complications,
to say nothing of its long roll of unrecorded death.”

Another point: From the professional vocalist’s
point of view. The tonsils are phonatory or vocal
organs and play an important part in the mechanism
of speech and song. They influence the surrounding
muscles and modify the resonance of the mouth.
Enlarged by disease, they may cripple these functions
and if so, their removal may increase the compass of
the voice by one or more octaves; but it is a capital
operation and a dangerous one in which a fatal result
is by no means a remote possibility.

The object of this interesting paper, it is pointed
out, is not to assail operation for definite and legitimate
cause, but to warn against the “busy internist”—­the
hospital surgeon—­too busy for careful differential
diagnosis—­and his “accommodating tonsillectomist”
who is “in the business for revenue only.”
But the onus for the existing deplorable state of
affairs he lays frankly upon the shoulders of the
teachers and insists that the cure of the evil is largely
educational. “When,” says he, “pre-eminent
authority proclaims in lecture and text book as indisputable
truth the relationship between a host of diseases
and the tonsils of the child and advises the removal
of the glands as a routine method of procedure, what
can we expect of the student whose mind is thus poisoned
at the very fountainhead of his medical education
by ephemeral theory that masquerades so cheerily in
the garb of indestructible fact?” “How,”
he exclaims, “are we to offset the irresponsibility
of the responsible?” But we hear on all sides—­“Look
at the results.” Results? Here is
a partial list from the practice—­not of
the ignorant, but of the most experienced and skilled:
Death from hemorrhage and shock, development of latent
tuberculosis, laceration and other serious injuries
of the palate and pharyngeal muscles, great contraction
of the parts, removal of one barrier of infection,
severe infection of wound, septicemia, or bacterial
infection, troublesome cicatrices, suppurative otitis
media and other ear affections, troubles of voice
and vision, ruin of singing voice, emphysemia, or destruction
of the tissues, septic infarct,—­infected
arterial obstruction, pneumonia, increased susceptibility
to throat disease, pharyngeal quinsy and last, but
not least tonsillitis!